By MKT Correspondents
Various groups championing for the interest of former freedom fighters have been challenged to unite so that they can collectively seek compensation.
By uniting, it will be easier for the thousands of the former freedom fighters and their descendants to have a common agenda and singularly make demands.
According to one of the groups, Mau Mau War Veterans Association (MMWVA) Director General, James Njuguna Mahuria, various groups have been claiming to agitate for their former fighters rights but they have not made any headway.
“There are uncountable groups, all claiming yo belong to Mau Mau members of their descendants. But, they have nothing to show, decades after the country gained independence,” Mahuria noted.
He added, “The way things are, it is either they unite or they perish.”
He said compensation from either the former colonial or the Kenya government cannot be easily achieved when they are divided.
Since last year, Mahuria has been calling on the more than 20 groups to join hands in their bid to demand compensation for the atrocities meted against those who were opposed to the colonial rule.
Some groups have come together and established the MMWVA where he was elected the Director General.
Mahuria expressed concern that some officials of affliated groups are reported to have defected from the umbrella organization to push for the long overdue compenastion on their own, a move he described as misguided. “United we stand, divided we fall. We are just about there, yet some people seem to be out to ruin the progress we have achieved so far, which is very unfortunate,” Mahuria noted.
He claimed that intense research, networking, lobbying and diplomatic approach have yielded positive results, with probable release of substantial amount of money said to be in the pipeline.
In an interview with Mount Kenya Times, Mahuria disclosed that through MMWVA officials in all counties across the country, they were identifying and registering former freedom fighters and descendants, in cases where the former fighters are deceased ahead of planned compensation.
Mahuria noted that unlike misconception that the freedom war was a Mt Kenya region affair, those who contributed in driving the colonialist away were also from Rift Valley, Nyanza, Coast, Ukambani, western and other parts of the country and thus the reason MMWVA had recruited officials from all counties.
He said that research in different maseums in the country and interpersonal interviews had revealed details of many victims of the liberation war.
“We are aware that there has been a number of cases in British courts in connection with compensation for Mau Mau war, and also that there was once an out of court settlement. But only a small fraction of would be beneficiaries was reached,” he said, adding, “During the post Independence settlement schemes, again only an insignificant number of beneficiaries got lands.”
When Kenya gained Independence from British, most of the former Mau Mau fighters continued to live in deplorable conditions with dying poor and being survived by even poorer children and grandchildren, majority of whom were even unable to access basic education.
He said that during a four day visit of King Charles and his wife Camilla to Kenya in 2023, the King had acknowledged painful aspects of the United Kingdom’s colonial past.
More than 10.000 people were killed and thouands more others tortured during the brutal suppression of the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s, which is describes as one of the British Empire’s bloodiest insurgencies.
In 2013 the UK expressed regret and paid KSh340,000 each to 5,228 former freedom fighters who had filed a case.
The Mau Mau outfit remained banned and categorised as a terrorist group until 2003 when then President Mwai Kibaki lifted the ban.
Most children and grandchildren of the former freedom fighters have no idea about the roots of the country’s suffering that gave birth to an Independence.
He added that many young people hardly know about the detention and torture of the fighters. But now, they are among the groups advocating for compensation, said Mahuria, adding the projected compensation is in the tunu of KSh21 trillion.
He called on the former freedom fighters to join the MMWVA and register with officials from their home counties as they await compensation.
The proposal was supported by a peace lobby group that has also been in the limelight championing for the rights of the former freedom fighters.
The group, Amani Kwa Wote Association through its chairman Paul Julius Kariuki Mwati in a recent interview said his group support the compensation initiative, both in cash and land.